Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan today accused a former government colleague of defaming him.
At a Fianna Fáil briefing today, Mr Lenihan alleged Senator Dan Boyle of the Greens libelled him when he accused him of interfering in the row over a €1 million pension payment to former Irish Nationwide chief executive Michael Fingleton.
In a statement issued last night, Mr Boyle candidate claimed Fianna Fáil was reluctant and “less than animated” in seeing several key banking figures called to account.
He said he received a phonecall from the Minister in 2009 where it was implied he should not criticise the building society.
“Mr Lenihan's call to me was to relay complaints he received from the building society board about my remarks,” the senator said. “I found this call to be surreal and still don't know if it was based on diffidence or delusion. No instruction was issued to me - but the implication was clear, my criticisms should not be made.”
He said there was an “unhealthy closeness between political decision making and financial institutions”.
Mr Lenihan said today he was “annoyed” by the comments.
“He suggests … in his statement of outright defamation that I was kow-towing to private interests in a confused way.
“So he doesn’t seem to understand the basic fact that two of the directors were acting in the public interest reporting to me from the board,” he said. “I think once you have that fact at the back of your mind it puts a completely different colour on this statement.”
Mr Lenihan said he had instructed Irish Nationwide to tackle Mr Fingleton over the pension. He suggested it was unlikely he would take the matter further, claiming that politically charged comments were made in the heat of battle.
Mr Lenihan made the allegation as he claimed his party’s policy of €15 billion cuts over four years was the only fully costed plan for recovery. “It is focused solely on the achievement of sustainable economic growth,” he said. “It has not been designed around voter appeal. It is realistic and it is credible. Our programme in the next Dáil will be the implementation of the plan.”